Tag: illness

I have been busting my ass at work on several challenging projects, and don’t have resolution on any of them yet. I am waiting on responses, waiting on meetings or not yet able to get to the work due to the slew of things on my plate right now. It’s a lot of uncertainty, and it feels like a lot is on the line.

I have a lot of uncertainty with my company right now because job openings keep coming through my email and I’m just not sure that it’s not better to quit what I’m doing and get paid to show up. Right now I show up and don’t always get paid (there’s a lot of boundary setting to do that hasn’t been done the last two years and I am just now able to see and acknowledge that).

I have a lot of uncertainty with relationships right now. I might have to take a break from therapy (thanks, insurance), my family is still sorting ourselves out after a lot of illness and injury and my experience living with PTSD continues to be challenging and limiting. What I want and what I have to work with aren’t matching up right now, and I haven’t managed to break through the barrier and constraints yet.

I got a little blindsided by this last round of PTSD symptoms. It hasn’t been this severe or lasted this long in maybe a couple of years. I feel dizzy and stupid at times, and very alone.

Don’t make important decisions now, right? Right. Because if I did I’d cut off everyone who isn’t supporting me right now… which is everyone. But in my few rational moments, I remember that they don’t know, and I’m not really in a place to be coherent enough to tell them. And I get this is hard to understand if it hasn’t happened to you, and I’m learning that people can’t tell there’s something terribly wrong with my head unless I tell them, and I’m apparently not good at saying what I need.

But honestly it’s a really isolating condition. And defining my needs is hard when my brain is chaos and struggle and survival.

So without placing blame on myself or others and trying to take a rational view of how to better address this in the future… I’m so fucked up right now. And I know why.

This weekend I was asked by a friend of mine if I wanted to have an affair. He’s married and has been diagnosed with an incurable illness with an uncertain progression. His wife now views him as his illness, and he’s maybe not making super great choices. I get it, to a point, but not only does he know I have a boyfriend, he knows my boyfriend. He asked anyway.

I was shocked, and it brought back most of my 20s – being asked to be a side piece by so many guys I worked with who weren’t happy at home. Which was never for me. It was always for them, and it sent a weird message about my value.

This hasn’t happened for years – until now. And now I’m having to fight to put all of those negative messages about my value where they belong, which is not with how I value myself.